


Small Common Ground

by Tonko



Series: Strange Bedfellows [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-06
Updated: 2011-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-22 07:19:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tonko/pseuds/Tonko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/228978">Strange Bedfellows</a>. Years earlier, Sanji meets Usopp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Small Common Ground

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the awesome [printfogey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/printfogey/profile) for the beta :D any remaining errors are all mine.

“Edible,” Zeff grunted, and Sanji felt pride fill him from his toes to the top of his head, puffing out his chest.

“Damn right,” he shot back. “I'm surprised your shitty palate can even tell.” He bit down on the grin that wanted to split his face. It was his first made-totally-on-his-own second-day stew, with perfectly thickened stock, meat that kept every bit of its needed flavour, and if Sanji had needed to climb onto a stool every time he needed to stir the tall pot on the big stove while it simmered, it had been worth it.

“Now get out, go play or something, you little sprout,” Zeff jerked his head towards the rear door, where the darkening sky of dusk was just visible through the small window, and then promptly ignored him, turning with his bowl in hand to go bark at the two new guys.

Sanji felt his pride turn surly, resentful of Zeff's attention to the new cooks. The inn now took enough business to need them, and Patty and Carne weren't _that_ bad, Sanji allowed grudgingly, they could cook, sort of, didn't even care about his teeth, but... but _still_.

“I'm _not_ going to _play_ ,” he snapped back, spitting out the last word with the sarcasm it deserved. Zeff responded to that with nothing but a dismissive shrug, but as Sanji turned away to wash up, he didn't miss the flicker of concern on the big man's craggy face. He hunched his shoulders while he wiped down the cutting board where he'd been chopping vegetables for tonight's roast, and shot a glance at the tall pot where his stew now was keeping warm, ready to be served.

 _This_ was what he wanted to do, he wanted to cook, and make this inn perfect, and watch Zeff get his dream. He'd promised, and he'd kept it—he worked hard, and he cooked hard, and so didn't understand why Zeff insisted he go find all the other eleven-year-olds in this shitty village and make nice.

This village was home now, yeah: because _Zeff_ was here, and they were finally running the inn Zeff had spent so long trying to build.

Zeff, who'd grabbed him by his ragged shirt when he'd tried to threaten him and steal his bag that night three years before, smacked him on the head to silence his incoherent tirade about surviving to go find the Blue Wood, then dropped him on the top of the low wall Sanji'd been hiding behind, sat next to him, and pulled out his bundle of lunch to share.

Zeff, who'd only snorted when Sanji had threatened to bite him and had bared the teeth that had gotten him driven from the orphanage, who'd torn his loaf of bread in half and offered the larger half to Sanji. Who'd given Sanji an expectant glare, when they'd finished eating and he'd started to walk away, and said, “well? Come on!”

Of course, this village was wonderful, Sanji never deny that, they'd not seemed to care about Sanji's sharp teeth, hadn't blanched and backpedaled, or turned mean and disgusted, when Zeff had presented them at the Town Hall, just let them settle here, treated them like anyone else. Came in satisfying droves to eat, once the inn's dining room had finally been ready. He loved it here.

But Sanji didn't need to _play_ , he needed to _work_ , for Zeff and for himself.

And besides. Just because the nice people at Town Hall and the patrons who came here seemed to like him...

It didn't mean the other kids would.

Sanji glowered down at the now-clean cutting board. He bit down on his tongue, feeling the longer, sharper canines dig in.

The orphanage had driven him away, shoved him out and chased him with stones, when they'd realized just why his mother had abandoned him as a baby. The caretakers... his friends...

Well, he had Zeff now, and these two shitty new guys, and he had food, and he could _make_ food. He didn't need friends.

“Here, short stuff,” Patty said, grinning at Sanji's glare as he put down a wide tray of new loaves from the baking oven. Little ones, to go in the baskets on tables while people waited to eat. “Get some of those out to tables nine and twelve, willya?”

Sanji obliged, stomping and sulking around the kitchen as he collected two empty baskets and clean checkered cloths to line them with, because Zeff was still ignoring him and he was damn well going to stay resentful, and eventually—but not too much later, because he would never keep hungry people waiting—took baskets out to their destinations.

He smiled out there, though, and drank in the attentions of the patrons, both tables being groups from town that included ladies, and they always seemed to like it when he acted like Zeff had taught him, extra polite and always praising them. He liked it when they smiled, too, almost as much as watching someone eat what he'd cooked. They were so beautiful when they smiled.

On his way back to the kitchen, he spotted a kid maybe his age or a bit younger, alone, sitting down at one of the small two-person tables along the wall. He was a funny-looking kid, with a really long nose and a mess of black hair crammed under a bandanna. A glance around didn't seem to show any adult around coming to join him, nor did the kid seem to be waiting for anyone.

That was weird. Kids didn't come here by themselves.

At a wave from one of the servers, Sanji got another bread basket from the kitchen, his sulk forgotten, and went over, dropping it with feigned disinterest on the table. “Here,” he said, then blinked and stared.

“Thanks!” The kid said, grabbing a loaf and Sanji just nodded, taking in the details of the kid's features that he hadn't looked for or noticed from across the room—they weren't obvious next to that nose, either. The kid had points on his ears, blunt ones, not the long swoopy points like elves had, and he had blunt little protruding points of lower canines showing, just barely, even when his too-wide mouth was closed.

With looks like that... the kid had to be part kobold. Not a full half, but some grandparent maybe. How strange. Full-blooded kobolds weren't strange, there were a bunch here in town, and the foreman and most of the builders and carpenters who'd worked on the inn had been kobolds—their culture made many of them amazing craftspeople—but half-breeds of any kind were rare. Sanji knew that very well.

The kid bit into the loaf and smiled with a hesitantly friendly expression as Sanji looked at him. Then he squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. “I'm Great Explorer Usopp,” the kid introduced himself, making something like a bow, sweeping his arm out grandly and ducking his head, even though he was sitting down. “I'm just stopping by to try out the food at this little inn before moving on, you know. I have to track down the Great and Magical Flying Mole. Once I do, he'll grant me three wishes.”

“Uh...” Sanji didn't know what to say to that.

Usopp looked a little deflated. “Don't you want to know what I'll wish for?”

“I... alright,” Sanji said, not knowing what else to say. He couldn't be rude to a customer, at least, not one who didn't deserve it, and anyway, he _was_ kind of curious.

Usopp's eager glow returned. “Well, first, I'm gonna ask for the best bow in the world. Then I'm gonna ask for a quiver that never empties,” Usopp grinned at the thought, taking another bite, and Sanji could see now, on his fingers, the calluses of someone who used a bow often. “And then... I'm gonna ask where my father is. He's a great adventurer, you know, second only to me of course!”

“Why don't you ask the mole to just take you there?” Sanji asked, then repeated the question to himself silently in disbelief. What kind of a conversation was this?

“Well, I'm a great ex _plor_ er,” Usopp drew out the last word, giving Sanji a stern look, “so obviously I need to have lots of adventures on my way to see him again, y'know.”

Adventures, like in the books he'd read back before he'd been driven from the orphanage. Like finding the Grand Line, or the Blue Wood.

“Yeah,” Sanji agreed, and Usopp beamed.

“So, who're you?”

Sanji recovered himself, at last, and straightened his apron a bit. “I'm Sanji. I'm a chef.”

“Wow!” Usopp looked gratifyingly impressed, and Sanji felt smug. Usopp looked at the bread. “Did you make this?”

“I—what?” His smugness evaporated. That was _Patty's_ bread, and it was, well, yes it was edible, but... “No way. I'll show you real food. Where's... whoever you're waiting for?” He looked around again. It really didn't make sense that a kid was here alone.

“Just me,” Usopp shrugged and took another bite of bread. “I live by myself too, see, and Nanny Orla from next door checks on me since my Mama died, and she brings me cooked stuff sometimes, you know, she makes good bread too, and cold meat and five-spice soup, even, but everyone's been saying this is the best place to eat ever since it opened, so I saved up from Mama's pension that I get.” He paused a moment to take a breath—Sanji had been getting worried—then added, whispering like he was sharing a secret, “I'm actually really super rich, but all my money is in a secret vault under a mountain on the other side of the world.”

Sanji had to make an effort not to smile this time. It was hard. This guy was kind of funny. “Right. Well, I'll get you the special, then.”

He headed back to the kitchen, and prepared a bowl of stew, picking out the bayleaf and adding an extra pinch of fresh seasonings. He got down from the stool, was about to pick up the tray and go back out, when he paused.

Zeff had told him to go play. He wouldn't. He couldn't. But...

He got back on the stool and filled a second bowl, adding it to the tray, along with some cheese for the bread, a pitcher of water and two mugs.

“Whoa there, short stuff!” Patty stared at the load as Sanji started to back out the kitchen door. “Need a hand?”

Sanji just rolled his eyes at that ridiculous question, and headed back to Usopp's table, weaving neatly between servers and arriving patrons.

“Here, try this.” He served Usopp one of the bowls. “I made it, it's good.” He put the other bowl down, along with the rest of the items on the tray.

“Uh, but, I'm not waiting for anyone...” Usopp sort of trailed off at that, making a one-shouldered unhappy shrug.

Sanji waved that away. “It's my dinner too,” he said.

Usopp stared a moment, and then he smiled.

Sanji went to replace the tray on the bar, then came back to sit down. He took a loaf and ripped it open to spread cheese on the inside. Usopp had waited for him to come back before starting, and as Sanji prepared his bread, Usopp took a heaping spoonful as his first bite.

Sanji's knife hand slowed and halted as he watched Usopp's reaction to the stew, saw his eyes half-close in contentment, and the long, slow savour before he swallowed.

“You're the best cook in the whole world,” Usopp breathed, once he could speak again.

“Chef,” Sanji corrected, but he couldn't stifle the smile this time.

Then he wished he had. “Whoa!” Usopp stared at him. “Fangs!”

The smile dropped, and Sanji felt defensive anger surge in him, and got ready to stand, leave—but Usopp's wide eyes were elated, his grin as big as any so far, and he dragged part of his lower lip down with one finger, fully exposing one long, thickened canine, the partial-blood version of the sturdy tusks that true kobolds sported.

“See?” Usopp asked, and he looked gleeful at the similarity between them.

Rationally, Sanji could list plenty of reasons why that gesture shouldn't matter to him, why he shouldn't feel suddenly comforted. Not least of which that kobolds weren't monsters, they were just regular people like anyone else, and that Usopp's kobold ancestor had been almost certainly been a normal family member, not a monster toying with a random human female.

But... Usopp looked like he thought they had something in common, some minor thing, something just trivial, like they'd just discovered a shared favourite food or drink.

He found his voice to reply after a few seconds to sort out the sudden evaporation of his anger. “Yeah...” he said, and opened his mouth, prodding at one fang with his tongue, and Usopp laughed a little, and took another bite of his stew.

“So I know a guy who's all human, right, nothing special,” _special_ , Sanji repeated to himself, then yanked his attention back to Usopp's story, “and his front teeth grew and grew and grew, like a squirrel's! He had to gnaw on wood to keep them down to size, you know, and he got so good at it that he opened a woodworking shop and made furniture for the king of the Faerie High Court!”

Usopp took another bite of stew and then was off again, and Sanji just sat, and ate, and listened, watching each bite of stew go down with obvious relish, even the last drops of broth mopped up with bread, all while Usopp talked about the craziest things Sanji had ever heard.

One of the servers came to take their empty bowls, and Sanji barely noticed.

He did notice, though, when a server returned with two dishes heaped with hot apple crumble, the scent of cinnamon making Usopp pause his story to breath the scent in.

“Try this one, kids, new recipe,” came a very familiar voice, and Sanji started. He looked up, and yes, oh gods, it was no server, but Zeff. “Sprout, you taste that and tell me what I changed from yesterday's batch. Tell me later,” he ordered firmly, when Sanji grabbed for his fork to obey right then and there.

Zeff left, Usopp calling a delighted thank-you and Sanji staring after him.

Usopp made a happy noise, and Sanji turned back to see him digging in, and did likewise, if more slowly. A last glance towards the kitchen door made him duck back to his food instantly, finding it far too weird to see Zeff just standing and watching him with that freakishly soft expression.

Shitty old bastard.

Sanji really did love this town.


End file.
